Escaping My Fate
by TheRumour
Summary: I wrote this in year 11 I think for an assignment. It's pretty short but that was the point.


Escaping My Fate

"_The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight_

_Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time_

_I am here still waiting, though I still have my doubts_

_I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out."_

Yelling. It starts like this every time. I see her. Her face pale and her vacant eyes. Below me I feel the cold of her body. I see her veins run dry. Mother. I know what comes next. I brace myself. It is the same every time. There is no point trying to change it, it's like fate leads me in this direction every time. It starts. I fall to the ground and they drag me under.

"_I'm sorry." she whispers, tears falling freely down her soft, pale cheeks. _

_She places me in the damp, cold sand a safe distance from the edge. I reach out. She is seventeen and I am only two. She steps frighteningly close to the violent waters below. Her eyes convey unspoken thoughts. Explanations. Her ruby red hair billows around her, her white dress flying. A red-haired, green-eyed angel. To young to end like this. She turns, her eyes seeking my green ones of the exact shade. _

"_I am sorry." she mouths._

_Her voice is lost amongst the ever-toiling winds. _

_I whimper._

_She jumps._

_This is my only memory._

Blood. Cascading, flowing, flooding. Spewing, surging and spilling my crimson life force into the sink beneath me. I am sure I am destined to end this way. Fate ties me to this destiny in a bond of barbed wire and venom. Of lost love and disappointment. Of fading memories and no will to last. To join those who have left us. Like my mother, this is how life escapes our control. Life's a joke. Everything. Is. A. Joke. What is life besides being stuck inside this shell, destined to live a hollow, empty and lonely life? What is religion besides an excuse to carry out evils and injustices in "God's name"? I pull a towel from the rack and press tight. Redness seeps through the fabric like animals emanating from the dark of night. How I wish for such freedom. Joy. Love. Anything other than this I have.

Emotions crash down on me like waves in the turmoil of a summer storm. Anxiety. Anger. Fear. Hatred. Insecurity. Loneliness. Revulsion. Trepidation. Hopelessness. Fear, again. I hold the needle in my perspiring hand. Lithium. They say it eases the pain. All it ever does is make me feel worthless in the final moments. It begins locking me up inside, in a state of absolute comatose. I wince as I feel the sting in my arm and lay down on my bed, dreading morning. Not much time left until I feel its sweet numbing sensation. I achieve what I long for, albeit temporary. I long for an escape.

As I sat staring over the steely blue waters, the cold barely registered. I was somewhere else entirely. I had too much on my mind.

I was stuck in the middle.

The endless sapphire of waves stretched out before me, while the noise and energy went on, seemingly without end, behind me. Yet here I sat in the gray sand.

Always in the middle.

Always in the gray, as the black and white answers stretched infinitely in either direction. I had two choices. I could join the life going on without me, or I could end this here and now. In the exact place my mother did, at the exact age of seventeen my mother did. It was impossible to retrace the steps and events that led me here, sitting on the damp sand atop the cliff, tears freezing as they fell down my face. But it was simultaneously impossible to regret them. I had a decision to make. Could I forget what had been, escaping my seemingly doomed fate? Or could I end it all. Right here, right now. I knew it would be hard. Despite all that had happened, I wanted to hold on. I had to. I wanted to do something with my life. I rose and stepped forward, my left foot coming dangerously close to slipping off the edge. I caught my breath.

"Why?" I yelled, the harsh biting rain as the only witness to my breakdown.

"I-don't have to-follow-her footsteps!" I sobbed, wrenching my foot from the edge and turning away from the cruel waters toiling below me. I spotted a tall form emerging from the bushes -or is it in my mind?- and knew who it was immediately. I steeled myself to face Him, my long red hair whipping as vicious as medusa around my face. The dress escapes my grip and I watch it float into the distance, torn in two directions on the windy horizon. I watch it flail hopelessly. He speaks.

Change is easy to spot, yet I found myself disbelieving as it happened before my eyes.

Rays of light filter through the stained glass windows, dust illuminated by the warm sunshine, an array of startling shades. The dust dances like flickering stars in the twilight. I am transfixed. People surround me, but I tune out the buzz of harsh whispered intricacies and sink deep into myself. I absent-mindedly sink my fingers into the coarse wool of the seat below me. Change occurred far quicker than I had ever thought possible. No longer did I spend my time thinking of how I might avoid waking up to a new, hate and venom induced day. He had pointed out how selfish it would be to kill myself, out there were people who loved me, they may have been few but it was all the encouragement I needed to continue changing and growing as a person. Love was something I had never noticed, never experienced. The bullying, the beatings. They stopped immediately. The ones I feared and harboured mass resentment to left. Life is looking up and I am not alone. Being alone was not a way to handle my problems. Neither was death. It had taken only one person to save me from completely going under and losing it. He was there at my worst. My saviour, the only reason I was alive. The wool shreds beneath my searching finger tips.

I am waiting.

He will come like He has every time.

"Ashley." He murmured, His voice wrapping me in it's warm embrace.

"Love is all you need. You do not walk alone."


End file.
